


alive is very poetic.

by bluewalk



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Strifehart, Strifehart Kink Meme, Strifehart Week 2016
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6081555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewalk/pseuds/bluewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>01. the university AU p. 1<br/>02. the university AU p. 2<br/>03. the flower child/punk biker AU<br/>04. canon-verse<br/>05. canon-verse again, but separate<br/>06. his dark materials AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. strifehart university au because you have to indulge yourself sometimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i’ve ordered take out every night this week and you always seem to be my delivery person_
> 
> originally posted on [tumblr](http://barnacletree.tumblr.com/post/135031791760/strifehart-university-au-because-you-have-to)

It takes until the third night for Leon to conclude definitively that he has seen him somewhere else before. On campus, at the university café, maybe in a lecture. He looks about Leon’s age, maybe a couple years younger. Leon chalks it up to his mental faculties being overtaxed this week leading up to his dissertation defense. He cannot explain how else he failed to recognize someone with hair like that.

“Total’s the same,” the guy says. He stands on the stoop of Leon’s apartment, awkward but enduring the scrutiny. The night’s cold and his chin is tucked into his scarf. His eyes cut to the side, to the hydrangeas that Shera always forgets to water, before returning to Leon’s. They are an uncomfortably bright blue, now that Leon can see them properly. Cid had finally changed the lightbulb in the tiny, cramped foyer this morning.

“Yeah,” Leon says, after another beat. He hands over a twenty and waves away the offer of change, the same as he’s done the last three times. The guy nods at him and shoves the bill into the pocket of his too-thin jacket.

“Thanks, see you,” he says, turning to go.

After a brief deliberation, Leon leaves the foyer light on, so the guy has something to see by as he walks into the night, shoulders hunched. There’s something familiar about that too.

* * *

 

Leon wakes up to an email from Quistis and immediately he wants to go back to sleep. He is lucky to have her help, but he’d rather she weren’t quite so thorough, or brutal. His fault; he was distracted last night and the notes he sent were juvenile and haphazard and he should have known Quistis would have none of it. He knows if he can pass muster with her then the rest of the committee will be no issue, but the revisions seem endless and there are only two days left.

 _I expect better of you, Squall, especially this late in the game_.

Everyone always expects better. They’re all somehow convinced that he can be better even when Leon himself isn’t sure he can. He doesn’t know what he’s done to give the people in his life the notion that he is infallible. Their belief in him seems unfounded, irresponsible. He feels trammeled and adrift at the same time. He feels tired. The stress keeps him up at night. What would Quistis say if he wrote back saying he can’t do it anymore, that it’s too much and he wants to quit, that everyone was wrong about him? Would they leave him alone? Would they find someone else to build up?

He frowns at the thought. Outside a dog barks and the afternoon sun is already a deep orange. His radiator hisses at him and he sighs. He always feel this way, this time of day.

 _Sorry_ , he types back.

In the kitchen are the empty containers that held his dinner. Upon seeing them, his brain stumbles groggily into the question he abandoned last night, still unanswered. Leon rubs at his eyes. Not now, he tells himself.

But even before his coffee finishes brewing he knows it is a lost cause.

* * *

 

Leon has to admit he’s been waiting for this all day. His traitorous brain had not stopped demanding _but where but where but where_ and it has made work impossible. It’s probably because the guy is something tangible, something in the context of here and now. Something that doesn’t have to do with cosmic strings and wormholes and the nauseous merge of space and time. Leon is quite frankly sick of all that.

Standing again in the foyer pinned under that blue gaze, Leon gives in. He’ll get an answer and then carry on with his life. “Where do I know you from?”

The guy looks taken aback by the question. “You mean, from before?”

Leon fights the urge to roll his eyes. He isn’t so far gone that he can’t remember who’s been delivering his late night dinners for the past week, so yes, of course he means from before. He nods curtly.

“You were the TA for one of my classes at the university.”

Leon pauses. Then, “Kramer’s class?”

A nod.

Strange. That was only last year. Leon still knows most of the students from that class by face and name when he sees them around on campus. He should not be having so much difficulty placing this one. Not with hair and eyes like that.

“I was only in it for about three weeks,” the guy offers quietly, like he’s sensed Leon’s confusion. “Before I—“ He cuts himself off with a one-shouldered shrug and drops his gaze.

“What?”

The guy studies his scuffed boots for a long moment. He shrugs again, eyes flicking up. “Dropped out.”

Leon is not expecting the sudden vicious hook in his heart, the heaviness in his gut the exact weight of guilt. There is shame, dense and dark, peering out at Leon from behind a sheen of blue. Leon opens his mouth to say he doesn’t care, that it’s not Leon’s place to judge. Wants to say academia is a soul-crushing place to be, as Leon himself is finding out, full of self-important, self-serving old men and terrors like Quistis whom you can never measure up to, and that the guy is better off elsewhere. That Leon doesn’t think any less of him, that none of that is important. Things that Leon wants desperately to tell himself too.

But Leon knows he does not have enough tact for all that to come across as anything but patronizing. And besides, what right does Leon have?

“I see,” is all he says. It’s inadequate but it’s the best he can do. He hands over the twenty wordlessly. The guy mumbles a thank you. Leon keeps the light on for him and watches him leave.

Back in his apartment, he pretends to work for another hour before giving up all pretense of productivity. An unease is growing, unfettered, fed by something that has nothing to do with his looming defense. He finds himself combing through his old emails for the roster for Professor Kramer’s intro physics class, dated a week before the semester started. He knows the name as soon as he sees it, nearly at the end of the list. He can’t believe he forgot. It’s as bad as his own.

The name unearths some other small fragments, modest blooms of color and hazy seconds of motion. A lecture hall, but one of the smaller ones with the asparagus green floors. Back row, towards the exit. Slumped shoulders and a down-turned face. Aggressive bed head. Hands folded on top of a conspicuously empty desk. But no matter how hard Leon focuses, that’s all there is. Leon does not remember how his eyes looked, what might have been peering out from behind them. He is consigned to the margins of Leon’s memory. If Leon could turn just a bit, raise his eyes that last fraction of an inch, then Leon would have him centered, focused, could catch his attention—but it is a year too late for that and time compression is still more theory than practice.

It is difficult to uncurl his fingers from the shape of a fist. His focus is spent for the night.

* * *

 

He is waylaid by Yuffie calling to reprimand him for being an unforgivable human being and for missing YuRiPa’s first live gig tonight. He tells her that tomorrow is the culmination of five years of over-caffeinated nights and library haunting and despaired staring contests with the void, and he’s convinced that the committee is out for blood, and Quistis is still not satisfied with his final defense.

She is not moved.

“Excuses,” she huffs. “Fine, but you’re celebrating with us this weekend. I’ll come drag the both of you out if I have to.”

“Both?”

Yuffie’s answer is the line going dead. Leon sighs. Preventative measures don’t work against Yuffie. He’ll have to deal with it when she comes banging on his door Saturday, but at least by then his defense will be over. He finally finds his wallet half-buried in the cushions of the couch and hurries out the door. It’s been several long minutes since the bell rang.

Cloud Strife, Leon reminds himself. A bad weather name like Leon’s own.

Cloud is waiting for Leon in the foyer, at the bottom of the stairs. Leon’s steps slow.

“Did someone let you in?”

“What?” Cloud looks genuinely confused when Leon reaches the last step. After an expectant silence, Cloud says, “It was just cold waiting outside.”

When Leon still says nothing, Cloud holds up the paper bag. The name of the restaurant is printed across it, Shinobi, in a bamboo-like font that Yuffie has told him is offensive and ignorant not to mention a travesty of design. Leon’s not looking at the font. Under the light of the foyer, the angles of Cloud’s face are sharper without the night dark to soften them, his shadow sitting at attention at his heels rather than languishing behind him, eyes a pale, glacier blue.

Cloud lowers the bag to stare at Leon over it and Leon scowls at himself. The stress is addling his brain.

“Whatever,” Leon says, taking the bag. It’s a bad start. He amends, “What do I owe you?”

Cloud fixes him with a blank look. Leon scowls again. _Stupid_. He thrusts the twenty towards Cloud, the only bill he had brought down with him anyway. Cloud takes it hesitantly.

“Change?” Cloud asks, hand still raised with the bill between his thumb and index finger.

“Keep it,” Leon manages without raising his voice. Rinoa always told him he did that when he got self-conscious. He is not self-conscious.

“The restaurant’s not that far away,” Cloud says. “It’s a lot of change. You don’t have to—“

Leon pushes Cloud’s hand away firmly, until it comes to rest against Cloud’s chest. Cloud stares at him harder for it and Leon regrets it immediately. He doesn’t know why he did that. He snatches his hand back and runs it through his hair instead.

“It’s late,” he says stiffly. “It’s fine. Just keep it.”

Self-preservation instinct and years of ingrained anti-social behavior tell him to extricate himself from the situation, to run fast, run now, but Cloud looks like he’s about to say something and Leon can’t bring himself to leave. The unease is growing bigger the longer he looks at Cloud, at the dark circles under Cloud’s eyes. Urgency underlines the question that hasn’t quite left Leon since that third night when he recognized him under the light: how did I forget you?

Leon shouldn’t have and it unnerves him that he did. And what does he do now that Cloud’s face is turned up to him and not down to an empty desk in the back of a lecture hall? Now that Cloud is centered, focused?

“Are you all right?” asks Cloud.

“Fine,” says Leon. “I’m busy.”

“Sorry, I’ll—“

“No.” Leon’s hand had rose without him thinking and Leon forces it to run through his hair again instead of reaching out to Cloud. “Don’t. It’s fine.”

“I don’t want to keep you,” Cloud insists.

Leon tries to quell the frustration and fails. Fine. What else could he say? He doesn’t even know why it matters. Cloud is silent as Leon unsticks his feet from the floor and picks his way back up to his apartment. He drops the bag on the kitchen table, glares at the piles of paper next to it. The entirety of the universe is scribbled across them, spelled out in proofs and strings of numbers and symbols of Leon’s own invention. What difference does it make what he does now or ever when he knows all of time can be narrowed down to a single instance and wiped clean?

He puts his cold mug of coffee in the sink and goes to bed. There isn’t anything else to be done, not with this wash of defeat over him.

* * *

 

It’s 6:45AM and the sun hasn’t risen fully yet. The streets are dead and a thin layer of snow had fallen during the night. The sky is a gradient of cool blues. Cloud Strife is standing on his doorstep. It’s hard to believe this is happening.

“What are you doing.” Leon is aware he sounds harsher than he means to be, but he’s not used to being up this early and he is a mere hour and fifteen minutes away from bombing his defense and negating five years of work. And Cloud, for whatever inexplicable reason, is here when he shouldn’t be.

Cloud blinks at him. “What?”

Leon looks at his watch. “It’s 6:47,” he says unnecessarily.

Cloud nods. “You’re never up this early.”

“I’m defending my dissertation today,” Leon answers without thinking. His eyes narrow as he processes the implications of Cloud’s statement. “How do you know that?”

“I didn’t,” Cloud says slowly. “You just told me.”

“No, that I’m never up this early.”

“I always come home from work around this time and I’ve never seen you.”

“Home?” Leon echoes. He is ill-equipped for this. He might as well just go back to bed.

Cloud looks like he’s waiting for something. Probably for Leon to stop being an idiot. “I live here,” he offers eventually.

Leon turns around to examine his front door, to make sure his apartment hadn’t morphed into another building.

“Here,” Leon says dully. “Since when?”

“August.” Cloud seems to take pity on Leon, because he adds, “We keep different hours. And you’ve been busy.”

How Cloud looks in the pre-sunrise winter gloom conjures up a number of adjectives that Leon refuses to entertain. Still, he’s distracted and Cloud has already maneuvered around him and unlocked the door before Leon can work through the fresh bewilderment and returning unease. Leon needs to secure something before he goes off to his doom—but he can’t articulate what it is.

“Good luck.” Cloud says it like goodbye, and Leon, in his haste to say something, anything, comes out with, “I’ll tell you about it after.”

Cloud gives him another look, this one unreadable. Leon tamps down on the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. But it’s not an unpleasant look, Leon rationalizes. It’s not condemning. Still a chance for damage control.

“It’d probably bore you,” he backtracks.

“It’d go over my head,” Cloud corrects. “You have better things to do with your time.”

Cloud says it like it’s a matter of fact, with no invitation for Leon to refute it. The frustration is back, but it swells into anger rather than defeat. Leon is the only one to decide how he spends his own time. Leon knows that a fraction of a second can be stretched to fill the expanse of an ocean. He can prove it. He knows a lifetime can be condensed down to a tiny, cramped apartment foyer. He can prove that too. And if Leon has to walk across an ocean, he could think of worse company than Cloud. If Leon’s time ends outside the circle of light of the foyer, he can at least count the green flecks in Cloud’s eyes before it’s over. What’s more, Leon cannot remember the last time he’s felt this all right with anything.

This has got nothing to do with his dissertation or other people’s expectations of him or the improbable workings of the universe. It’s about what he wants, independent of all that. It’s about what Cloud wants too.

“We’ll see,” he says, keeping his tone level. “Later. If you want. Or not, whatever. It’s about space—stuff. And time travel.”

God. He’s still terrible at this.

Leon doesn’t wait around to hear if Cloud says yes or no or whatever. Later, though. He means that.

* * *

 

On his way home, he stops by Shinobi. He makes a mental note to get rid of the evidence from the week before Yuffie comes over tomorrow to make good on her promise of extracting him from his apartment. After a moment’s consideration, he doubles the order and adds an extra roll. Cloud looks like he could eat more.

Leon’s defense had gone well. Exceptionally so. Granted, it had taken an outstandingly moronic question from one of the committee members to get him on track, but Leon had always worked best when taking people to task. Quistis had pulled him aside after it was over to give him a long hug. He had been in too much of a daze to resist.

As expected _,_ she said.

If she had said that to him last night he would have told her that his dreams for the past half-decade have been about nothing but time compression and singularity and all of existence binding tighter and tighter around him until he was ground down to dust and then even less than that. Was that as expected? That he would be given over to his work so completely that he feels crushed by it before he even wakes in the morning?

But he did not feel bitter. After all, if anyone could understand the gauntlet of academia it was Quistis and she shouldn’t be blamed for his own personal shortcomings. And so Leon only felt validated—wrung out, but accomplished. Proud that he hadn’t proven Quistis’s belief in him wrong. Grateful that Quistis never once let him down.

Thank you, he said.

There was another revelation there, and Leon tucked it away carefully.

His building comes into sight and suddenly the bag seems too heavy. Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe success is making him overly bold and reckless. But he thinks back to this morning, to that unease he now has an explanation for, and finds himself propelled up that extra flight of stairs past his own floor.

Cloud answers the door in the same jeans and hoodie Leon saw him in this morning, when the sun had yet to rise. Now the sun streams in through Cloud’s curtain-less windows, throwing his shadow across Leon’s. He opens the door wider to let Leon in.

“Space stuff and time travel, huh?” Cloud says without preamble. “You don’t look the type.”

Leon’s heartbeat feels too slow, then too fast. “Lunch first,” he says.

* * *

 

“Squall! You had better be dressed and ready to go or I’ll break down this door and—oh. Good! I’ll go get Cloud. You two know each other, right?”

“I’ll get him. You make too much noise.”

Yuffie follows him up the stairs anyway, then pushes past him to race ahead in her excitement. It doesn’t even surprise Leon that they share the same friends. Another sign of what he’s missed. He doesn’t want to risk spending his time wrong anymore, and not just because of the possibility of time compression ever-present in the back of his mind.

Cloud opens the door before Yuffie can bang her first on it.

“Hi,” says Cloud. “Cid’s going to yell again if you make too much noise.”

“That old man loves me, it’s ok. You ready to go, Cloudo?”

Yuffie hooks one elbow with Cloud’s and another with Leon’s. Cloud struggles to lock his door before she pulls him away. Leon has to grab Yuffie by the scruff of her neck to keep her from tumbling down the stairs and taking the both of them with her, and Cloud catches the heavy front door with his foot before it can slam on her nose. Yuffie takes it all in stride.

“Since you both missed the show, Yuna says you gotta make it up to them by going the first round of karaoke.”

“No,” Leon says.

“I was working,” Cloud protests.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules.” She manages to sound solemn and regretful. “But cover my bar tab for the night and I’ll see if I can pull some strings, get you two out of it.” She nudges them both in the sides, none too gently.

Leon hears Cloud laugh, a soft, barely-there sound.

The karaoke bar isn’t far, just down a couple streets, but Leon would not mind if the walk there dragged on a little longer, if these minutes stretched to cover all of Radiant Garden.


	2. more strifehart university au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continuation of the previous chapter, some indeterminate amount of time later, now more self-indulgent than ever
> 
> originally posted on [tumblr](http://barnacletree.tumblr.com/post/135556619440/more-strifehart-university-au-because-finals)

Almasy is already waiting in the hall when Leon gets to his broom closet of an office. Leon does not grimace, but it's a near thing. He does not want to be in such close quarters with Almasy today. Or any day, but the aversion has been exacerbated by a recent discovery. Leon had brought it up with Cloud but Cloud had only given him one of those blank looks he uses all the time, which Leon has learned to interpret to mean, _I’m not comfortable talking about this so I will pretend to be stupid_. Leon had let it go at the time, but only because Cloud was leaving in a few hours for an extended trip to Twilight Town. Leon does not think he has enough self-restraint left to not punch Almasy in the teeth after today's string of faculty meetings. The department chair had volunteered them all for the holiday party committee, claiming they were the best qualified, he was very proud of them, expecting great things. Leon wanted to demand what part of a theoretical physics doctorate means he knows the difference between holly and mistletoe but Quistis had kicked him under the table and Leon somehow stopped himself from putting his head through the walls.

“Professor." Because Almasy does not do anything as innocuous as greeting, the title comes out mocking, condescending.

Never had Leon encountered a student that inspired in him such an urge for physical violence. They must have been mortal enemies in a past life, or bitter rivals, or disenchanted not-friends on opposite sides of a war. Doesn’t help that Almasy is a shameless bastard in this life too.

Whatever might have been, in the here and now Leon considers lying about not having office hours. He decides reluctantly that it wouldn’t fly. Thursdays, 4:00 to 6:00pm. It’s right there on the top of his syllabus and Almasy isn’t an idiot, even if he does his best to act like one. He is among Leon's best students, loathe though Leon is to admit it. And definitely the last person Leon needs to see during office hours.

“What do you want,” Leon says, unlocking the door. He briefly entertains slamming it on Almasy’s foot but doesn’t want to risk his tenure track by assaulting a student. He lets Almasy in, watching in distaste as he immediately throws himself into the worn-down armchair in front of Leon’s desk.

Leon sighs. “Comfortable?”

Almasy grunts, and wriggles deeper into the cushions. “I’m all right.”

“What do you want,” Leon says again. “Office hours are for students who actually need help.”

Almasy rolls his eyes. “No one ever comes to these things. I thought I’d keep you company until quitting time, out of the goodness of my heart.”

Leon does not bother to call bullshit, as Almasy would just own it and compound it. He has too much work to do and he aims to do as much of it as he can before Almasy becomes unbearable. Ordering twenty pizzas for the holiday party is likely not among the great things that Cid Kramer is expecting. On Leon's desk are growing mountains of menus he's been collecting from catering companies the last couple of days while Cloud was away. Finding a decent one with the budget they have left after philosophy department insisted on the life-sized gingerbread house is looking near impossible.

Almasy’s voice interrupts his thoughts of skipping town, tenure be damned. Cloud had said Twilight Town was a nice place. Quiet. Quaint. Or the Destiny Islands, a hemisphere away. They could both use some sun, to escape the long, grey winters of Radiant Garden.

“What,” says Leon.

“I said, how’s blondie doing?”

Leon narrows his eyes. He makes two observations. One, that Almasy too is blond and would he appreciate being called blondie. Two, that Almasy's eyes are averted, like he's _shy_. Seifer Almasy, who propositioned Quistis the first day of orientation. Shy. The urge to punch him in the teeth surfaces again.

"Stop glaring at me, god." Almasy itches his nose. "It was just a question. Polite conversation."

"Don't," says Leon. He's about to tell him to leave again when he hears footsteps coming down the hall.

Almasy hears it too, going by the way his spine snaps straight. The office is small enough for Almasy to lean his long body over the tattered arm of the armchair to stick his head out.

"Well, damn," he says after a moment, sounding awed.

Cloud appears in the doorway wearing his leather riding jacket, the one with the quilted shoulders, and Leon puts his head in his hands.

"Am I interrupting?" Cloud asks. "I didn't think anyone actually went to office hours."

"See," says Almasy, smug. "I was just keeping the good professor company. That was nice of me, wasn't it, Cloud?"

"I guess?" Cloud says at the same time Leon grumbles, "Get out."

But Almasy is already emboldened, all trace of shyness obliterated. "He doesn't seem to want the company though. We shouldn't distract him from all the important work he has to do. You're too busy for us, right, Prof?"

"Oh," says Cloud, taking in the stacks of menus on Leon's desk.

Before Leon can say he has time for one of them and it's not Almasy, Almasy stands and says, "Let's make ourselves scarce. Show me your bike again, Cloud?"

Cloud's eyes lift from the menus to Leon's exasperated face before turning to Almasy, who easily towers over him. "I don't know," he says slowly, though Leon can tell he's pleased despite the carefully neutral expression.

"Just go," Leon sighs. The day has been ridiculous anyway and he is unwilling to begrudge Cloud the chance to show Fenrir off to someone who's as big a gearhead as he is, no matter his personal misgivings about Almasy. "I'll see you at home."

"Where'd you park," Almasy says, already out the door and impatiently pulling on his long, white coat.

"He's not your student so you can punch him whenever you want," Leon reminds Cloud, who gives him a small smile.

"Professor," Almasy gasps, bringing a hand to his heart.

"This way," says Cloud, walking past him, and Almasy is gone in flash of white without another word to Leon.

Leon listens to their voices until they've faded completely. The silence starts to ring after a while. He shakes his head and picks up another menu.

* * *

 

"He didn't try anything, did he," Leon can't help but ask when he gets back to their apartment after his evening class. He toes off his boots, his laptop clamped under his arm. "Cloud?"

"I'm in the kitchen, and I'm not going to answer that question."

"Is that a yes?"

"Is this an interrogation?"

"That's a yes." Leon frowns at the growing puddle of melted snow under his boots, nudging them until they're against the wall. He'll deal with it later. "Did you punch him?"

He enters the kitchen in time to hear Cloud sigh.

"You're embarrassed," Leon observes.

"I'm not."

"All right," says Leon, suddenly fond, which makes him magnanimous. "You're not."

Cloud shoots him a glare but lets it go. "Pizza," he says, gesturing to the oven. "I kept it warm.

The mention of pizza reminds Leon of his as yet unresolved quandary and his mood plummets again. It must show on his face because Cloud offers, "I can run out to get something else?"

"No." Leon slumps into a chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That's not it. Just-- this stupid holiday party. It's in two weeks and they haven't found a caterer, so now I'm supposed to. You don't happen to know anyone, do you. Mind you, they'll have to do it practically for free."

He grits his teeth before he can start ranting about gingerbread houses and mood lighting and 1000-thread count table runners and other such frivolities that have eaten up what was once a reasonable budget. He's not expecting a real answer, but Cloud looks thoughtful as he joins him at the table. "Is that all?" Cloud says. "I know someone. I'm sure you can work something out with her."

Leon's hand drops. He stares at Cloud, who catches his disbelief and makes a small sound of amusement.

"Tifa's really great," Cloud says. "I think you'll really like her."

 _Never as much as I like you_ , Leon thinks. He realizes he said it out loud when Cloud rolls his eyes and says, "Well, good. Now I won't feel uneasy giving you her number."

"Whatever," says Leon, trying to fight the blush and failing.

“To thank me for saving your ass, you can let me get out of having to go to the party.”

“No. You suffer with me.”

* * *

 

Later, he really does want an answer.

"But how did it go with Almasy today?"

"He said he's going to drop his physics major."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know." A pause. "Will you talk to him about it?"

"Cloud-- he's not you."

"Because he's actually passing his classes?"

"You know that's not what I mean. I just mean-- he seems fine."

Cloud doesn't answer for a long time. Leon's about to turn on the light so he can see Cloud's face, but Cloud’s hand finds his wrist in the dark, and Cloud says, “Fine covers a lot of ground.”

Leon settles back against the pillows. "All right," he agrees.

* * *

 

Almasy saves him the trouble of calling him over by approaching Leon after class. The book he's holding is white, leather-bound with ornate trim. Definitely not their physics textbook. To Leon's surprise, Almasy hands it to him.

 _LOVELESS_ , Leon reads from the cover.

"Why," Leon says simply.

"It's not for you, it's for Cloud."

"Why," Leon repeats.

There's that look on Almasy's face again. Shy. Young.

When it's obvious he's not going to get an answer, Leon continues, "Does this have anything to do with why you're dropping physics?"

Almasy's expression morphs from shocked to irritated to pleased, whiplash-fast. "You guys talk about me? What else did Cloud say?"

"Answer the question, Almasy."

Back to irritated. "What do you want me to say? What if I’m just bored with physics."

"You're good at it."

"Doesn't mean I like it. I just-- want to do something else."

"This?" Leon holds up _LOVELESS_.

Almasy’s face goes blank. Cloud-blank, Leon realizes. He might have to rescind his words from last night.

"Maybe,” Almasy says, his voice smooth and flat. “So what if it is? Poetry. Literature, the epics, all that stuff. Not as boring as physics. And _LOVELESS_ is a classic, all right."

Escaped aggression curls Almasy’s last words into a low snarl. Leon almost doesn't manage to reign in the disbelief before it shows on his face. He wouldn’t have expected this of Almasy. He thinks no one else ever did either, judging by the way Almasy’s defenses shot up. Almasy who is loud and brash and—earnest. Almasy who is more like Cloud than Leon ever saw.

The longer Leon’s silence drags on, the more volatile Almasy seems to become.

"Well," Leon tries. He casts about for something else. "As long as it's what you want. Doesn’t matter what I think."

Almasy’s shoulders lower at that, so it seems to have been the right thing to say. Of course it is, Leon understands; it’s what Leon would have said to Cloud.

"You gonna miss me in your classes, Prof? You should invite me over sometimes, so Cloud doesn't worry about me so much."

"He doesn’t," Leon lies. “Don’t get any ideas.”

They leave the building together, parting ways at the crosswalk only because Leon threatened bodily harm if Almasy dared follow him home.

Almasy laughs, but turns to go the direction of student housing. “Give that to him, all right?” He gestures to _LOVELESS_. “I’ll know if you don’t. I have his number. I want to know what he thinks.”

* * *

 

“I want you to know it was a highly uncomfortable conversation,” Leon says.

Cloud nods absently, turning the next page, brows drawn close in concentration.

“Good book?” Leon prompts.

Cloud frowns, but it’s not his unhappy one. “I—I think I’m getting it.”

Leon smiles to himself. He falls asleep with the glow of the bedside lamp against his eyelids, the warmth of Cloud’s hip against the back of his hand.

* * *

 

“I hate this,” says Cloud.

“You’d be less irritable if you didn’t stay up all night reading.”

 _LOVELESS_ was last week, and when Cloud said he found it a bit heavy-handed, Almasy came back with _I Want to Be Your Canary_. Leon read it too and said Almasy could do with more subtlety. Cloud said Leon was disgruntled because Almasy had obviously meant for Leon to be King Leo.

“Whatever,” Leon countered. “But I draw the line when he starts writing you love poetry.”

The look of mortification on Cloud’s face had brought Leon great satisfaction.

Now, the heat of Cloud’s glare is rather cooled by the flipped collar on his button-up. It’s actually Leon’s, but Cloud had spilled tea over his only one earlier today, in what Leon suspects was a desperate act of sabotage. Now he’s stuck wearing a shirt that needs to be safety-pinned in the back, and Leon’s still trying very hard not to look smug.

Leon smooths the collar back down for him. “Tifa’s going to be there. It won’t be as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

“Seifer said he was going to pose as a server and crash the party.”

“He’d fail,” Leon says mildly. “He’s too tall and I think half the literature department has already developed a sixth sense for him out of survival instinct.”

Cloud looks torn between pride that Almasy has been terrorizing the professors in their ivory tower and disappointment that no one will be saving him from tonight.

“I’ll be there,” Leon adds.

“You’re the one making me go in the first place,” Cloud says, but he lets Leon pull his hands away from where they had been attacking his cuffs. “What if someone asks me my opinion on the Kingdom Hearts debate?”

“It’s light, I think,” says Leon. “And it’s all right to say you don’t know. You don’t have to prove anything.”

Cloud sighs heavily. “Get drunk fast again so I can use the excuse of needing to keep you from demonstrating time compression with the cheese spread.”

“No, I’m not taking anything Aerith gives me this time.”

There’s a glint in Cloud’s eye though Cloud is smiling innocently enough. Leon knows he’s in trouble. Strangely he does not think the flutter in his stomach has anything to do with fear.


	3. such a loveable lamb to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a fill for the [strifehart kinkmeme](http://strifehart-kink-meme.dreamwidth.org/386.html)
> 
> _flower-child Cloud and punk-biker Leon make an unlikely pair, but inspires a ferocious romance all the same. [[x](http://strifehart-kink-meme.dreamwidth.org/386.html?thread=2178#cmt2178)]_
> 
> i think cloud has too much anger to be a flower child in the traditional sense so i went with the environmentalism angle… extreme environmentalism. which means… this is really punk-biker cloud in the guise of a flower child, and sweet flower child leon in the guise of a punk-biker. i don’t know.

“Of course I see it on the news.” Leon pinches the bridge of his nose. “But what do you mean _you_ did it?”

“Hold on,” comes Cloud’s tinny voice.

Leon holds on. For a long while there is just the relentless, abrasive scratching of fabric against the mouthpiece of the phone. He’s probably being jostled around in Cloud’s pocket as Cloud himself is running from the giant plume of smoke Leon can see outside his window, even miles away. The television shows him a fleet of fire trucks and police cruisers, bathed orange in the firelight, their flashing sirens splashing red and blue onto his walls. The rapidly scrolling marquee across the screen pronounces, POLICE SUSPECT UNDERGROUND ECO-TERRORISTS. POWER OUTAGES ACROSS MIDGAR BOROUGH. NO COMMENT FROM SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY.

Leon is now nauseatingly aware of every single heartbeat, the vulnerable pulse in his neck and in his wrists. The news anchor, back-lit by the fire, keeps losing his words to the drone of helicopters and the wind whipping the flames still higher. Towering behind him is the burning black carcass of Reactor 1. But as Leon sinks onto his ratty couch, he can only think of Cloud’s hands, tucked into the sleeves of Leon’s leather jacket, of Cloud’s smile, that small, soft thing, of that flower on the window sill in Leon’s bedroom, living in a sawn-off beer can, turning towards the sun.

_Cloud_ , Leon thinks.

The scratching from the phone stops abruptly and Leon turns his back to the television, says, “Cloud?”

“Leon.” Cloud sounds out of breath. There are people yelling, urgent and angry. “Sorry. This must be a lot to take in. I wanted to call– well, just in case.”

“You need to explain everything right now,” Leon demands, because he doesn’t know what else to say and he wants the people to stop yelling at Cloud and he wants Cloud to keep talking until Leon gets to him, until Leon understands everything, until Leon knows Cloud is not going to get himself blown up while Leon is sleeping in bed.

The yelling does stop. _Call ended_ blinks at him from the phone screen. Leon needs to find his keys.

 

* * *

 

There are few things Leon hates more than riding his bike in the rain. It’s wet and cold, everything article of clothing plasters itself to his skin, the inside of his helmet always gets too damp, and people seem to think their spindly umbrellas will shield them from a head-on collision with a speeding hunk of metal.

There are almost equally few things that Leon hates more than riding the train, because Radiant Garden’s public transit system is as old as the crumbling castle on its outskirts, and is more stop than go no matter the weather. But at least there are no oblivious pedestrians for Leon to accidentally maim.

Pretending there is no one else in the car with him is a cardinal rule, but there is a small pile of dirt between the feet of the guy sitting across from him that Leon can’t ignore. As Leon watches, the pile grows just that much bigger as another shower of dirt comes down. Leon lifts his gaze to see that cradled in the guy’s bare hands is, indeed, a bundle of dirt and rising from that bundle, a single white flower. Leon can’t say he knows anything about flowers despite his hometown, but he recognizes it’s different from the ones in the Gardens because he does not recognize it at all. Maybe the guy doesn’t either because he’s frowning down at it like he’s baffled by its presence.

The train is mostly empty now, nearing the end of the line. Leon’s stop is next. The guy hasn’t moved. The rain outside has calmed to a fine mist which Leon knows will be just as annoying to deal with, for the way it will cling to his skin. Leon shifts.

“You’re getting dirt everywhere.”

The stranger doesn’t look up right away. When he does, it’s slow and searching, like he’s already forgotten the source of Leon’s voice. When he does find Leon, he doesn’t look away.

“Sorry,” the stranger says at last. “A friend made me take this.”

Leon has to swallow a few times before he can speak. “Without a pot?”

“She was repotting and was short one. She told me to find a new home for it. Seemed to think it was funny.”

Leon wishes this stranger would look away, wishes he would look anywhere but at Leon. The thudding in Leon’s chest is ridiculous and uncomfortable, and– somehow, now, the train has passed Leon’s stop with Leon still on it.

“Do you want it?”

“What?” Leon clears his throat. “What? No.” He stands, gripping the overhead bar. “No,” he says again, concentrating hard on reading the billboards outside as they flit by.

The train is slowing again for the next stop, jostling its passengers as it changes gears clumsily. Leon tries not to look down again, into the stranger’s eyes, but he can’t help it.

“I’m afraid it’ll die,” the stranger says, his hands a cradle, his eyes wide and blue. “I just don’t want it to die.”

Leon does not have an answer for why he walks home that evening with a pocket full of dirt, a single flower tucked carefully against his side, white against the soft black of his jacket, the mist trailing behind him like a sigh.

 

* * *

 

The officer– small, blonde, popping gum– is not at all intimidated by the leather or the long scar between Leon’s eyes or Leon’s glare. Leon tries cracking his knuckles, feeling unpleasantly like Seifer as he does so, but is only rewarded with another rustle of paper.

“Look,” says Leon. “I just want five minutes.”

The officer points to the hard plastic chairs in the corner of the room next to the fake plant without looking up from her paperwork. “Sit, or get out,” she says.

“I’ve been sitting for three hours. It’s four in the morning.”

“Then get out,” is the answer Leon gets.

It’s two hours of bleak daylight and restless pacing before Cloud finally appears, escorted by an officer with an eye-patch. The blonde officer gives a lazy salute and unwraps her sixteenth piece of gum since Leon had stormed into the precinct however many hours ago.

There are dark circles under Cloud’s eyes, both his wrists a painful red. Leon feels a rage scorching its way up his throat.

Eye-patch looks Leon up and down, his lopsided grin begging for Leon’s fist.

“This one yours, scarface?”

Leon takes Cloud by the elbow and his helmet from the chair, hears Eye-patch yelling after Cloud not to go where they can’t find him as Leon maneuvers them both out of the building. Outside, Leon jams the helmet onto Cloud’s head. It’s always easier, when Leon can’t see Cloud looking at him.

“What is wrong with you,” he says, taking Cloud by the shoulders. “I don’t even know what to say to you. What the hell is going on? What have you done?” He gestures sharply to the ruins of Reactor 1, colossal even from a distance.

“They’re not going to find any evidence,” comes the muffled reply. “All they can prove is that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“That makes it better?” Leon shakes him. “Cloud, what are you doing?”

“Leon, I’m tired.”

Leon stares at his own haggard reflection in the helmet’s tinted face shield, catches the flutter of movement beneath it, of Cloud blinking, and suddenly Leon is back on that train, reaching for Cloud, for warm soil and green life, and Cloud’s hands streaked with dirt, how they parted and lifted so carefully away from Leon’s that Leon almost could not destroy the temptation to catch them and hold them fast. Leon searches desperately for something in him other than numbing relief and bone-deep exhaustion, anything to draw from, to give him energy to find and fix whatever it is Cloud has gotten himself into, but Leon finds nothing. He just wants Cloud home.

“All right,” he relents. “But later–”

“Later,” Cloud confirms.

He gives Cloud his jacket, so he won’t have to see his wrists.

 

* * *

 

 “Excuse me.” He nods at the cart of yellow and white flowers. _Gainsborough_ is painted on the side in looping cursive. “Are these yours?”

“Yes,” the woman says, smiling. “Would you like one? They’re only one munny. You look like you could do with some color other than black in your life.”

“No.” He frowns, unsure if he should be offended. He’s suddenly self-conscious about his all-black ensemble, his ripped jeans, heavy boots. “I already– some guy gave one to me. On the train? About a week ago?”

He doesn’t know why his voice keeps going up at the end like that. He wants to kick himself. The woman regards him for a long moment before smiling again, but this time in a way that makes him distinctly nervous. “I see. You must be looking for Cloud. He helps me sometimes with my garden.”

“No. I’m not. I– he was worried about it dying, so just let him know it’s not dead. That’s all.”

“You planted it somewhere?”

“Well. It’s just in my apartment.”

“You kept it, that’s wonderful. You can tell him yourself. He’ll be back soon with lunch.”

“No,” he says, hating how weak he sounds. “That’s not necessary.”

“I’m Aerith, by the way. And there he is– Cloud! I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

Panic and dread clutch at him, but Aerith’s smile fixes him in place, daring him to take a step. Knowing defeat when he sees it, he sighs. “Leon.”

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe you still have that flower.”

“I was cleaning dirt out of my pockets for days,” Leon mumbles, annoyed that Cloud is pulling him out of the comfortable lull of slumber.

“I can’t believe you put it in a beer can. I can’t believe it’s still alive.”

“I can’t believe you’re still talking.”

Cloud takes the hint. In the silence that follows, Leon can imagine he hears Cloud’s heartbeat beneath his palm and the layers of too-big t-shirt and muscle and bone. Cloud’s hair still smells like smoke and something that reminds Leon of the one time they had sparklers to play with at the orphanage. A gap in the gauzy curtains throws a thin stripe of sunlight on the bed, slicing across their calves.

“I’m sorry,” says Cloud. “For not telling you.”

Cloud’s prone to the kind of guilt that builds up walls and Leon doesn’t want to waste time knocking them down, so he allows the apology to settle over them and the threadbare sheets and the faded comforter.

"Get some sleep,” he says. “But tomorrow you take me to meet this Avalanche.”

He watches Cloud’s eyes finally close and he sees Cloud’s smile, that small, soft thing– he imagines it illuminated by firelight, the blue of Cloud’s eyes gone liquid, his skin heated.

He pulls Cloud closer still, lets his wild pulse drum against Cloud’s body.


	4. just enough to keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for the strifehart kink meme
> 
> _leon’s favorite part of Cloud, and Cloud’s favorite part of Leon. [[x](http://strifehart-kink-meme.dreamwidth.org/386.html?thread=898#cmt898)]_

The moments when Leon allows himself to be still are rare. The people returning need roofs over their heads, and running water, and electricity, and something else besides to make it all feel like home again, to make staying worth it. The Heartless are an infestation and the world will not rebuild itself. Leon has had nine years to be helpless and powerless, and that was enough. Another nine years cutting himself up to give to this town will not make up for his failures, but Leon doesn’t know what else to do but try.

But the moments when Leon is allowed to stop– to teeter on that precipice overlooking forgiveness far, far below– is when Cloud is home. When Cloud says, I’m here. When Cloud pries the gunblade or sledgehammer or pen from Leon’s trembling hand with an ease that makes Leon shiver. When Cloud stands before him, smelling like ozone and the dust of other worlds, and Leon can’t look away and Leon’s world realigns with Cloud at its center and Cloud’s shadow stretches longer than those nine years behind them, and Cloud’s eyes are the color Leon remembers the morning sky being before Radiant Garden became hollow, and Cloud’s hands are on Leon’s shoulders and Leon feels like he is allowed to stop– fall– rest.

Because, “You don’t resent me,” he whispers, heart and hope stuck in his throat, thinking of the boy Cloud once was, and that other boy called Squall, the two of them throwing coins into the sun-shimmering waters of the fountain and wishing for an extra week of summer.

Cloud rolls his eyes and Leon should be offended but he is only thankful. Cloud, nine years among the dead and still human enough to be kind, and gentle. Leon knows he doesn’t deserve it, but Cloud gives it to him anyway. Absolution at Cloud’s hands, the way they move from Leon’s shoulders to either side of Leon’s neck, his palms cool against Leon’s skin, and Leon tips forward.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t look at me,” he says. It falls short of a command, because he knows Leon hears the _please_ he can’t say out loud.

For a long, tense moment, he thinks Leon won’t listen to him, will fight him on this, will insist, as Leon often does. He still hasn’t learned it’s useless, that Cloud’s shame is weaponized, and so Cloud will always win. But then Leon does turn away, no argument, and a hurt that Cloud was not prepared for knifes viciously through him. He grits his teeth. He braces for the eddying darkness that will fill the space where Leon had been, the susurrus of dark things, glints of silver between it all– a sickness inside him and he’s sure the world can see it too, swirling and coiling beneath his skin. Worms, or snakes. Purples and blues and blacks. A voice in his head telling him to come and kneel.

He waits, but there’s none of that. Leon’s warmth is still with him and Cloud finds himself leaning against Leon’s broad back without knowing how he got there.

“You’re always like this,” Leon grumbles. “Too damn proud for your own good.”

Cloud can’t argue because Cloud can’t remember what he used to be like. Whether he’s changed or always has been too damn proud. Can’t understand why everyone’s mouths and eyes go soft instead of hard with fear when they see him, his wing, the calamity at his heels. He remembers the people, or snapshots of them, and jumbles of words returned to him on a passing wind, but doesn’t remember Radiant Garden, or a home.

He’s jostled back into the present, hears Leon saying, “Don’t fall asleep on me.”

Those words have a younger echo, something trying to reach him through the years and fugue. Cloud tries to remember, but it’s difficult, like cutting through a thicket with a dull knife and no fire to see by, cutting your own hands as much as anything. But there are glimpses– refracted light and blue stone, a trail of pink sky above. Everything looked bigger then. His head was hurting from trying not to cry. There was a rumble against his cheek, as a voice spoke.

“You sat here with me once,” he says lowly, once that echo has faded. “Like this.”

Leon’s answer is slow in coming, and soft, like he is very far away. “Yes,” Leon says. “A very long time ago.”

He feels Leon’s voice more than he hears it. His eyes won’t stay open anymore. Leon’s back is warm and solid. The darkness won’t come for him like this.


	5. strifehart week 2016: day 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 20 august: identity crisis
> 
> originally posted on [tumblr](http://barnacletree.tumblr.com/post/149252774720/strifehart-week-day-2-20-august-promise-or)

“I’m sorry to bother you, Leon, but there’s some sort of grey sludge dripping from the ceiling in the east wing.”

Leon looks down and to the side, a movement that seems strange to her, though she can’t quite articulate why. She looks to Cloud, who is sitting behind the desk in Leon’s small nook of an office with his head in his hands.

“Are you all right, Cloud?” she asks. Cloud hasn’t been back long, just two days, but she hasn’t seen him since the first night. He had no visible injuries then, but she wouldn’t put it past him to lie his way out of taking a potion or eleven. He says the blaze shards used in the synthesis always make potions smell of brimstone.

“I’m fine, Aerith,” says Cloud. He sits back in the chair and pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, there’s sludge?”

“Yes,” she says. “In the east wing. Yuffie can only switch the buckets out so fast.”

“The ground floor?” Cloud clarifies.

She nods. She looks at Leon again, who is still frowning at the wall. “What do you think it is, Leon?”

“There’s construction going on on the next floor,” Cloud answers instead. “We– you’re renovating some of the living quarters. Right, Leon?”

There’s a hint of a threat in Cloud’s voice that Aerith does not miss.

“Right,” Leon mumbles at the wall. “I. Forgot.”

“Forgot?” says Aerith, concerned. But before she can move to check Leon’s temperature, Cloud stands and walks between them, making for the door.

“A pipe must have burst or something. And the water mixing with all the dust and drywall. I’ll go take a–”

Cloud stares down at the door knob that had come off in his hand, and with it, a good chunk of the door too.

“Cloud!” says Aerith, reaching for him instead. “What are you doing?”

“I–” Cloud seems to glare harder at his hand. “Forgot.”

“Forgot?” says Aerith, feeling distinctly like that parrot Magda who belonged to the elderly lady living next door to them back in Traverse Town. “Your own strength?”

Cloud hesitates, then concedes, “Yes.”

“Fix it later,” says Leon, shouldering the door the rest of the way open and shoving Cloud out of the room. “Just go.”

Aerith steps into the hallway after them. She is so used to watching their backs that she can tell they are both unsteady on their feet. Cloud snags Leon’s elbow when Leon misses the turn for the corridor leading to the east wing. They’re too far away for Aerith to hear what Cloud is saying in his low, soft voice, but not so far that she can’t see how Leon’s stubbornly trained his eyes on the floor. It is all so strange. Cloud’s direct, unwavering gaze when he looked at her before, Leon’s sudden preoccupation with his shoes.

She should go synthesize a couple of Remedies, just in case.

* * *

“Squally!” Yuffie has never been so glad to see someone in her entire life. Her arms ache, her hair feels like plaster, her clothes like papier-mache, and she’s pretty sure she swallowed some of the sludge when switching out the sixth bucket.

“Don’t,” Cloud starts, but runs a hand down his face instead. “Never mind.”

“Don’t what, Cloudo?” She grimaces, trying to wipe the sludge from her legs before it cakes on her skin. Gross. She gives up. “You gonna help too? Did Leon finally bully you into doing some work around here?”

“I work,” says Leon.

“I was talking to Cloud,” says Yuffie. She stops combing her fingers through her hair to watch Leon’s mouth open, then close.

Leon looks away. “I know,” he says.

“I’m here voluntarily,” says Cloud. “Can we get to work now?”

“Squally’s really rubbing off on you, eh.”

“No,” Leon and Cloud say at the same time. They glare at each other, until Cloud puts a hand over his eyes in exasperation and Leon re-directs his scowl to the far wall. Yuffie looks between them. The scene is familiar but not in the way she expects. Like puzzle pieces in the wrong places. Something feels off-kilter. She wonders if there was something mind-altering in that sludge she ingested.

“All right,” says Yuffie slowly. “Well, the leak seems to have slowed for now. Why don’t you guys take a look upstairs? That’s where all this is coming from. Probably from the construction?”

“Look who didn’t forget,” she hears Cloud mutter as he brushes past.

“Should I get the door for you,” Leon retorts.

Yuffie shakes her head. Did those two get hit with a Confuse on the way to the castle this morning? Maybe she should see Aerith about synthesizing some Remedies. But first and more importantly: a shower.

* * *

“Cid’s calling for you.”

“I know,” says Leon in Cloud’s voice. “I heard him two minutes ago. Do you hear like this all the time?”

“No, sometimes I like to turn it off for some peace and quiet.” Cloud rolls his eyes. “What do you think?”

“Whatever. And he’s not calling for me, he’s calling for Spiky.”

“You’re Spiky.”

“I’m not answering to that.”

“But you’ll answer to Squally?”

Leon shoots him a glare. Cloud tries not to notice how nonthreatening his face actually looks. Leon just doesn’t know how to use it properly, that’s all.

“It’s this pipe here,” Leon is saying. “Must have cracked it drilling the other day. Good thing we shut the water off on our way here.”

If Cloud doesn’t say it now, he’ll never say it. He waits for Leon to wander off a bit, checking for other weak spots. Then, “Sorry,” Cloud says. Coughs. “For forgetting.”

There is a painfully awkward silence. Just as Cloud starts wishing for Masamune to skewer him again, Leon says, “It’s not important.”

“Ok,” says Cloud, not knowing what else to say. He’s about to brush his hair away from his eyes but the sight of Leon’s hand coming towards him startles him before he remembers it’s his hand now. Now and for the foreseeable future, until Merlin figures out how what exactly was that weird purple orb Leon had picked up near the Rising Falls. Really, Cloud thinks, Leon and his penchant for pocketing strange baubles are entirely to blame here.

Cloud immediately feels guilty for thinking it. He looks around at all of Leon’s work in the weeks Cloud’s been gone. Cloud looks down at his borrowed hand, bare without Leon’s usual gloves. They’re bigger than Cloud’s own, but with callouses in the same places. The index finger on the right hand is a bit crooked, from when Leon had broken it last year. Leon’s fist is a heavy solid weight. There’s a burn scar on the back of the hand. Cloud doesn’t know how Leon got burned; he wasn’t there for it.

“It’s important,” Cloud tries again.

Leon looks at him from across the room with Cloud’s eyes, and it’s strange. Everything about this is strange, was strange even before the switch.

“Ok,” says Leon.

“I’ll try not to forget things anymore.”

“Ok.”

They leave it at that.

* * *

 A teacup whizzes by Leon’s ear at an alarming speed, but he ignores it, unfazed.

“The mages of old used to exchange their life force for mana,” says Merlin, sending the sugar bowl on the same trajectory. “Very risky business. But this little orb here would help that exchange along, so that the mages could call upon their most devastating spells as soon as the need arose in battle. It must have been warped after so many millennia, not to mention a Heartless invasion. It was born from the world after all. It must have felt the changes. Where did you say you found it?”

Merlin had directed the question to Cloud in Leon’s body, but Leon answered for him. “On a ledge near the Rising Falls.” He allowed Merlin a few seconds more of turning the orb around in the candlelight before clearing his throat. “So how do we switch back?”

“All magic is about the mind, boys,” says Merlin, his spectacles slipping down his nose and somehow pushing themselves back up. “I imagine you must have done this last night when it happened. Just hold it and think of–”

“Right, ok,” Leon says loudly.

He feels his face grow hot. Judging from the uncomfortable silence behind him, he can’t look at Cloud because then he’d see his own face blushing and Leon would not be able to resist the urge to punch it to make it stop.

“Got it,” he says, with forced calm. “Thank you.”

Outside Merlin’s house, they stand very carefully looking at the sunset and not each other. A claymore glides by and disappears around the corner. Then Cloud reaches out and takes the orb from him.

“Cloud,” Leon warns, holding out his hand.

“I got it,” says Cloud.

“It’s not a toy. We have to switch back.”

“I know.”

“Then give it to me.”

“I got it,” says Cloud again in Leon’s voice. “Trust me.”

Leon drops his hand. Cloud’s hand, with the scar on the palm the straight width of a blade that Leon had never been brave enough to ask about. With the bitten-down nails, cool fingertips, uneasy strength. That sought his last night, if only briefly, right before sleep.

“Ok,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the orb is the hp-mp materia from ffvii)


	6. strifehart week day 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 21 august: crossover
> 
> originally posted on [tumblr](http://barnacletree.tumblr.com/post/149405625080/strifehart-week-day-3-21-august-crossover-leon)

Leon had not seen a Nibel wolf since Radiant Garden fell to the Spectres. This one he knows by name, though she had been a cub the last time he saw her, young like the boy whose heels she dogged after. But back then she was just as likely to be a chocobo chick, bright and shrill, a fawn, dark-eyed and clumsy, or a hatchling dragon, more smoke than fire. But now she has settled. Now her shoulders look nearly level with Griever’s, her teeth and her eyes as sharp. Leon did not know Nibel wolves could grow to be so big.

The wolf swishes her tail left, and then right. She is alone, and the initial drumbeat of shock falls to that cold wordless rush Leon has named grief. He had not felt it with such relentless intensity since Cid closed the gummi ship door on their dark, silent world, not since those early weeks adrift when not even Griever’s presence could make him feel warm, whole. Griever presses against his side now, offering comfort, but Leon can feel the tremors running under her fur.

After nine years, hope is unthinkable, reckless. A severed daemon could only mean a fate worse than death, and Leon would not wish it upon anyone. But the wolf cocks her head at him and she is familiar in a world where nothing else is, and Leon can’t help himself. Leon is selfish, and Leon wants, so Leon hopes. They say never to offer your hand to a wolf, but he has already taken the first step, and the second.

“I know your name,” he says.

“And I, yours,” says the wolf, her voice a tremor through Leon’s bones.

* * *

Griever settled when Squall was fourteen and Cloud eleven. She was molten-eyed with paws the size of Squall’s head, raw power and primal grace. Cloud could not say he was surprised. Griever had been favoring the lioness form for weeks. Lion and lioness daemons were rare, Cloud knew. Merlin had said so and Cloud himself had never met another. It took a rare kind of person, they said. Fenrir had never been something so big, so regal.

Regal as she was, Griever still consented to stretching her jaw wide to indulge Cloud’s curiosity about her teeth. Cloud thought back to the circus Cid had taken them to when they were younger, and that man who had put his head in the lion’s mouth. But Cloud decided against it; he didn’t think Squall would find it funny. So Cloud sat back, and Griever laid herself down at Squall’s feet and allowed Fenrir to peck at her tufted tail.

“What do you think Fen’s going to be?” Cloud couldn’t help but ask.

Fenrir warked softly, hopping back over to Cloud. She bumped her head against his hand until he uncurled his fingers to run them through her feathers. His hands were still sticky from the seasalt ice cream Squall had bought for them earlier.

“Wouldn’t you be happy with whatever form I take, Cloud?” she said.

Cloud frowned. “But what if you’re a rat or something like that?”

“Then it would be your fault for being a ratty person!”

Cloud looked to Squall, concerned. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think she’ll be a rat,” Squall said.

“I hope you’re something cool like Griever,” Cloud said to Fenrir, who puffed up her yellow feathers indignantly before shivering into the form of a fox. She bit at Cloud’s fingers and dove under one of Griever’s massive paws before Cloud could swipe at her. She made a contented sound as Griever curled the paw around her.

Watching them, Squall said, “You shouldn’t upset her like that.”

“I don’t care,” said Cloud, but he let the subject drop. There was a math problem he wanted Squall’s help with but he had forgotten the page number. Flipping through his book, he was distracted again by the sun on Griever’s coat, the tip of one of Fenrir’s ears flicking against Griever’s nose.

It seemed then to Cloud that there were more important questions than the ones in his math book. He wanted to ask Squall how he felt. Was it any different, did it hurt for Griever’s bones to hold the same shape all the time, did Squall ever miss being able to cradle her in his arms? As much of a pain as Fenrir was sometimes, she was still a comfort on stormy nights, curled up under his chin as a kitten, or as a bear cub with her paws in his hands.

But then Cloud thought, Squall was not afraid of anything. That was why Griever was what she was. Because Squall was that rare kind of person and Cloud was not.

“Sorry,” said Cloud. He let the book fall shut on his lap. “You don’t have to.”

Squall rolled his eyes and held out his hand. “Factorials, right? That’s chapter four. Let me see.”

But there was such a distance, suddenly, and Squall didn’t seem able to reach him like he always did. Cloud tried to listen but it was difficult, and when the time came to go home for dinner, Cloud had still not gotten one practice problem without Squall’s help. He watched the steady roll of Griever’s shoulders as she and Squall walked away, until they turned into the alley shortcut to Squall’s home. Fenrir would not speak to him for the rest of the day and slept under his bed that night, no matter how much he cried for her to come up.

“I’m sorry,” he had whispered into the dark, which seemed so vast. “Please, I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t understand it, this feeling of dangling over a bottomless darkness. He was alone and it was so quiet. He felt his heart beating wild and frantic in his chest, but the beat he heard in his ears was too slow, off-tempo. Fenrir’s eyes watched him, cold as silver, unblinking. He was too terrified to beg anymore.

* * *

Olympus is another one of those worlds where the people keep their souls inside themselves like a guarded secret. These past nine years Leon has traveled to all manners of worlds, alive and dead and dying, but he will never be used to seeing a human unaccompanied, can’t help that instinctual jolt of revulsion, when his mind throws up words like intercision and guillotine.

There’s none of that when he sees Cloud in the lobby of the Coliseum. Leon feels only that cold wordless rush, amplified when Fenrir refuses to close the distance to stand besides Cloud like she should. But even without Fenrir by his side, it is impossible to mistake him. Cloud doesn’t look at him but Leon can’t look away. Leon is still taller. It is a thought that strikes him suddenly. Leon will always be taller and for some reason the thought comes with a guilt that threatens to cut his knees.

What could he say? What words were allowed to Squall but not to Leon? What is the point if he is already nine years too late?

“I hate him,” Fenrir snarls from the doorway.

“What?” Leon says, startled. He must have heard wrong.

“Useless,” says Fenrir. “Pathetic. Weak. I hate him.”

“You can’t,” he says. “What are you saying?”

Fenrir bares her teeth. “I wish I were anyone’s but his.”

Griever moves before Leon can open his mouth again. Fissures spider across the ceiling at the impact of Fenrir’s body hitting the wall, the torches flickering as dust and plaster fall into the flames. The room is too small for two great beasts and their claws and their teeth, and Leon soon finds himself backed against a wall. The ground shakes as Griever roars.

“That’s enough!” Leon says, his ears ringing, worried that they’ll injure themselves, that they’ll bury them all in rubble, and afraid, irrationally, that Cloud will disappear again. That he will have to go to Aerith and Yuffie and Cid and say that he lost him a second time. That he will have to go to sleep that night with regret and shame cloaking him like Dust, until his mind could think nothing else.

Before Leon can step in, Fenrir is hauled back by the hand on the scruff of her neck. She goes still, her fangs bared, refusing to turn around.

“I hate you,” she growls, low and guttural.

Cloud does not flinch. “Then leave,” he says. His gauntleted hand drops to his side and Leon does not have time to be surprised by his voice, because Fenrir is leaving like it is the easiest thing in the world, like it does not tear her apart to do so. He watches her go, shouldering past Griever with one last snap of her jaws, her paws leaving prints in the dust. He watches Cloud’s face for signs of pain, distress, anything, but it is blank. The air settles and Fenrir is gone from sight. Cloud turns to him, his eyes fixed somewhere in the vicinity of Leon’s collarbones, and Leon doesn’t know where to start.

The last time they spoke, Leon was sixteen and Cloud wanted to hear all about his first day training with Captain Aeleus. Fenrir, a wolf cub, had ran endless circles around them until Griever pinned her under a paw. It was already the early dark of winter and Leon was bruised and exhausted, but Cloud had waited for him and Leon couldn’t find it in himself to brush him off. Let’s get something to eat first, he had said, and they got roasted chestnuts in the marketplace because it was too cold for ice cream. Their fingertips were hot from peeling the shells, their breaths curling with the smoke in the cold. 

It had been so simple then, but now Leon doesn’t know where to start, can’t decide if it is horror or pity behind his hesitation. But hearing Cloud’s voice and seeing the flicker of Cloud’s eyes, Leon realizes it is neither. It’s only that he is not used to being so reckless. That’s what this is. He had not felt stupid hope like this since Sora showed up with his Keyblade that could lock the windows between worlds.

There are questions that Leon needs to ask. He wants to ask Cloud how he can stand to be torn from Fenrir. And how did it happen, who did this to you, how does it feel, isn’t it excruciating, what are you doing here, where have you been, can you forgive us?

But all that will come later.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

Cloud raises his eyes. Their blue is glacial. “I’m not a child anymore,” Cloud says, but the way he scowls is exactly the way Leon remembers, and suddenly it’s like nine years haven’t slipped between them. Like Leon could believe it’s just Fenrir being her usual teasing self, or that Tifa had beaten them at arm wrestling again, and all Leon had to do was buy Cloud seasalt ice cream instead of having to contend with the emptiness at Cloud’s side like a gaping wound, and the unspoken, twisting guilt growing inside himself.

Griever circles Cloud slowly, not brushing, but close enough for warmth in Fenrir’s place, and that Cloud could reach out if he wanted to, and–

“Come on,” says Leon.

Cloud’s hands relax at his sides. “They don’t have seasalt ice cream here,” he says dryly.

“Who’s not a child?” says Leon.

Cloud rolls his eyes, but when Griever steps to the side, Cloud only hesitates for a second before following after Leon, and for a fleeting moment, hope did not feel so reckless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while since i've read His Dark Materials, so please forgive me for any inaccuracies
> 
> i do really want to find time to write more of this. here's hoping!


End file.
